Update week 11

This week I did not have a lot of time to update my portfolio due to other courses, I have processed some data, which updated my plots and provided some new interesting things:

Comparing the structure of the most typical songs of each time period

Firstly I have made composite standardized z-scores based on acousticness, danceability, valence, energy and tempo. This allows me to filter out the most typical and atypical songs of each time period. The following is a list of typical songs (z < 0.01)

Most typical songs per time (based on tempo, valence, danceability, acousticness and energy) 40ies: - Half Nelson

50ies: - Boplicity, Birth of the Cool

First Quintet - ‘Round Midnight

Second Quintet: - Dolores

Fusion: - Willie Nelson - Live at Fillmore East, New York, NY - June 20, 1970

Final years: - Freaky Deaky

[1]  8 29
[1] 33 43
[1] 145 167
[1] 32 52
[1] 187
[1] 34 64

Comparing similar renditions of Summertime has only yielded inconclusive results so far

Using Dynamical Time-warping, I have compared two renditions of the popular song Summertime (Gershwin). One is recorded on the album Porgy & Bess by Miles in 1959 and arranged/produced by Gil Evans. The other is a 1991 (right before his death) rendition which uses the same arrangement and the same key. The differences between these tracks are that 1991 version is significantly faster (107 in 1959 and 132 in 1991). Other than that, the solo played by Miles is longer on the 1959 version and he is also the only soloist. In the 1991 version Miles playes a shorter solo and is taken over by a saxophone before finishing the theme himself at the end. I expected the chromagram to show a diagonal line during the theme that would fade when the solo’s started, but so far have not found a way to visualize this. Perhaps micro-adjustments in key could work (although the audio features show that both are in the same key and I expect spotify to normalize this). Perhaps the fact that the audience is hearable has a great influence on the succes of DTW.

Check out the 1991 Summertime rendition (same recording as on the album)!

Have a listen to the 1959 rendition:

The Musically shapeshifting genius that is Miles Davis

Self-portrait by Miles Davis

Self-portrait by Miles Davis

For my corpus I have decided to investigate the jazz trumpet player Miles Davis. Davis is known within the jazz and global community as a constant innovator and key figure of jazz music. His method for innovation was to constantly attract upcoming talents and stars within the upcoming current in jazz. He then instructed these youngsters with his own vision of jazz and this was reciprocated by the youngsters how provided him with their own new views.

In my corpus I will try to analyse Davis’ music by answering some of the following questions:

The following phases of Miles Davis’ oeuvre could be examined

Miles transformations are visible in data from Spotify

When starting out his career, Miles started playing with the bebop-greats like Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie, bebop is a jazz-genre that was (kind of) mainstream during the 1940ies and was characterized by high tempo’s and a great focus on technical skill rather than expression. Miles never was a great technical player (compared to the big figures of the time) and was keen on going towards slower paced music in which he could show his sense of expression. As such he was one of the pivotal figures in the “Cool Jazz” movement that emerged in the early 50ies and resulted in slower paced music. This is the point in which the energy seemed to drop along with the valence.

At the turn of the 60ies Miles wanted to get rid of conventional music harmonic theory and looked to experiment with more difficult time-signatures, free-jazz (in which the form was completely lost) and electrical instruments. This is best characterized by the sharp decrease in acousticness. Another trend seen in the chart is the increase in liveness of his oeuvre which is best explained by the fact that he wanted to create music on the spot as much as possible, with long improvised songs that did not follow any predetermined structure.

During the 68 to 75 years his electrical playing was at its peak, and was more frantic and all over the place than the period before. This is seen by the increase in energy.

In his last decade, Miles was a shapeshifter trying to cover popsongs, and ventured into hiphop(Doo Bop), while remaining true to experimental music.

This was just an introduction, the text is not definite and I will have to look up more stuff

Miles in terms of Valence, Danceability and energy

A general trend is clearly visible during Miles lifetime, in which a predominantly low energy and high valence repertoire (1944 - 1954) gradually diversified to cover the entire of the spectrum in 1969-1975, after which it remained mostly upbeat in his last years. The 1955-1962 (modal and first quintet years) are by far his most productive (292 datapoints) and are characterized by lots of low energy low valence ballad tunes and mid-danceability. The music in these years are what he is mostly remembered by now, although he heavily resisted to play this music in later years.